Men of talent, Isnard, Guadet, Vergniaud himself, are carried away by hollow sonorous phrases like a ship with too much canvas for its ballast.

Their minds are stimulated by souvenirs of their school lessons, the modern world revealing itself to them only through their Latin reminiscences .-- Francois de Nantes is exasperated at the pope "who holds in servitude the posterity of Cato and of Scoevola."-- Isnard proposes to follow the example of the Roman senate which, to allay discord at home, got up an outside war: between old Rome and France of 1792, indeed, there is a striking resemblance .-- Roux insists that the Emperor (of Austria) should give satisfaction before the 1st of March; "in a case like this the Roman people would have fixed the term of delay; why shouldn't the French people fix one ?..." "The circle of Popilius" should be drawn around those petty, hesitating German princes.

When money is needed to establish camps around Paris and the large towns, Lasource proposes to dispose of the national forests and is amazed at any objection to the measure.

"Coesar's soldiers," he exclaims, "believing that an ancient forest in Gaul was sacred, dared not lay the axe to it; are we to share their superstitious respect ?"[2212]--Add to this collegiate lore the philosophic dregs deposited in all minds by the great sophist then in vogue.

Lariviere reads in the tribune[2213] that page of the "Contrat Social," where Rousseau declares that the sovereign may banish members "of an unsocial religion," and punish with death "one who, having publicly recognized the dogmas of civil religion, acts as if he did not believe in them." On which, another hissing parrot, M.Filassier, exclaims, "I put J.J.